


the pawn to your king

by blackwayfarers



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-27
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-12-16 09:09:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/860412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackwayfarers/pseuds/blackwayfarers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's not a date," Liam says again, giving Louis a laughing shrug, kind of baffled. Their usual ladding about has never even been remotely date-like; dates don't often end with fines being paid to department stores by their management, or cellphone videos of them shooting nerf guns at paparazzi. "Harry, we do this all the time, we're just going to Sweden to have a laugh."</p>
<p>"Yeah," Harry says again, his tone supremely bored. "You do it all the time. You go on dates. You go on dates all the time. I know."</p>
            </blockquote>





	the pawn to your king

**Author's Note:**

> Wanna smooch K. for her excellent beta. Title comes from St. Vincent's song "Now, Now."

It's barely five in the morning, cold, and absolutely chucking it down when Liam meets Louis and Harry in the international terminal of Heathrow airport. Liam as done his packing properly, one suitcase he wheels behind him, all dressed up in his fur-collared anorak and jeans and black leather boots, a shawl of rainwater damp on his shoulders. Predictably, Louis is in pyjama bottoms and a tanktop and one of Zayn's bomber jackets, bare ankles visible above his Vans. Harry is by his side, sitting on Louis' suitcase and yawning, barely keeping his eyes open and still dressed like he just woke up, the keys to his Porsche jangling in one hand.

"We're going to Sweden," Liam says by way of hello as he wheels his suitcase up next to them, punching Louis gently in the shoulder and waving at Harry.

Louis shrugs. "It's not Siberia, Liam."

"It's Scandinavia," Liam says. "Vikings. Reindeer. Frosty beards."

"We've been to Sweden before," Louis says flatly.

"In the summer, Tommo," Liam adds, edging a smile just to make sure Louis knows he's kidding around, trying to get him into the spirit. Liam always gets so pumped up before a trip, especially one as unsanctioned and spur of the moment as jetting to Sweden on a lark for a couple of days of messing about with a guitar, a penthouse apartment, videogames, rubbish food, and Louis. Even dreary London mornings can't snuff the little-kid-going-to-Disney-World excitement that bubbles in Liam's chest ever since he first flew on an airplane.

"Why'd you book it so early?" Louis groans.

Liam takes a glance around the mostly empty terminal. "Hear that?"

"No," Louis says, now properly leaning on Harry he's so tired. "What am I meant to be hearing?"

"Exactly," Liam says, gesturing to an airport free from screaming people. "I checked and we're the only two booked in first class, too."

"Ah," Louis says, and his eyes brighten then, waking up a bit to give Liam the first grin of the morning, the first grin of the trip they both excitedly half-planned in Skype calls over the Christmas holidays. "Good one, man."

"You coming too?" Liam asks, nudging Harry awake. "I can definitely get you a ticket."

"Naw," Harry says, yawning loud and long. "Just driving Louis to the airport."

"That's really nice of you," Liam says, trying to spread at least some of his excitement. This isn't really the proper way to start an adventure, all this slumping in an empty terminal with half-lidded eyes and a groggy murmur for tea, coffee, Red Bull, death. Liam expects shouting and running and mischief and broken laws, the rowdy joy of Louis abroad, where everything in a hotel room can be stolen, even the paintings and television. Especially the paintings and television.

"Lost a bet," Harry mumbles, shaking his head as Louis shoots him a winning grin. "Besides, I wouldn't want to be the third wheel."

"Third wheel?" Liam asks.

Harry raises one eyebrow. "Yeah, for your date in Sweden."

"It's not a date," Liam says, still smiling though cocking his head to the side, like a dog hearing a high pitched noise. "We're just going to write some songs and have some, like, New Years fun or summat before tour. Some deadly days, man."

"Yeah, exactly," Harry says. "Your date. Your Sweden date."

"It's not a date," Liam says again, giving Louis a laughing shrug, kind of baffled. Their usual ladding about has never even been remotely date-like; dates don't often end with fines being paid to department stores by their management, or cellphone videos of them shooting nerf guns at paparazzi. "Harry, we do this all the time, we're just going to Sweden to have a laugh."

"Yeah," Harry says again, his tone supremely bored. "You do it all the time. You go on dates. You go on dates all the time. I know."

Liam shoots Louis a laughing smile, Louis replying with a lazy shrug that seems to suggest that he should ignore Harry. "Harry, we just hang out. We muck about, you know that."

"Listen, you can do whatever you want on your dates," Harry says, waking up a little just from the enjoyment of being sarcastic with Liam. "I'm not going to judge. But they _are_ dates, just so you know. Zayn agrees with me."

"Oh," Louis says, rolling his eyes. "Well if _Zayn_ agrees."

"Niall, too," Harry adds.

Louis actually laughs then, giving Harry a friendly shove. Harry stumbles and catches himself, standing tall and to yawn and shrug again. "Harry," Louis says. "Shut up, babe. They're not dates."

"I mean, you can call them what you want," Harry says, patting Louis' back. "But Zayn and I know they're dates. You go on dates. That's what you do. We're cool with it."

"Bro dates, sure," Liam says, giving him a placating smile.

"Nah," Harry replies, tossing his car keys in the air and catching them again. "Just dates."

Louis rolls his eyes again, that mix of irritated and amused he gets sometimes with Harry, a sarcastic glimmer in his eye that Liam recognizes as the beginning of certain fantastic catastrophes. "Yeah, sure, man," Louis says, patting Harry's shoulder. "We're dating. We go on international trips to spice up the relationship. We're super secret boyfriends and I'm carrying Liam's twins. We're naming them both Harry. Congratulations, Sherlock, you've solved the case."

Harry doesn't seem too bothered by Louis' sarcasm, just gives a lofty shrug and says: "Yeah, I know."

"They're not dates."

"They are, though," Harry says, keeping his voice calm which seems to drive Louis mad.

"They're really not."

"Bicycling along the embankment," Harry says, checking each one off on a finger. "That time you had lunch on the roof of the studio alone. V Fest. Surfing in America. Surfing in Australia. Surfing in America, again." Harry gives Louis a smugly satisfied smile. "The Katy Perry movie. Did I miss any?"

"Yeah, our fucking candlelit gondola ride in Venice when Liam proposed marriage," Louis says, giving Harry's shoulder a whack. "I don't wear the ring to keep the tabloids from talking. One day, though, we'll announce our true love. Is this just payback 'cause I made you drive me to the airport?"

"Think what you like," Harry says, leaning in then to give Louis a quick peck on the cheek goodbye. "Have fun in Sweden, I'm going back to sleep." Harry leans in and gives Liam a short hug. "I'll pick you up on your way back if you want."

Louis doesn't seem ready to end the fight, but he's disarmed suddenly by Harry's seeming genuine kindness. "Yeah, well. Fine. I guess. Thanks, Styles."

"No problem, sunshine," Harry says, and his wink makes Louis growl.

"They're not dates," Louis says.

"Bye, Liam," Harry says, car keys tossed and caught again in a way that Liam feels is quite smug. 

"Bye," Liam says, still kind of laughing at their duel, the dull foil of Harry's monotone stinging the spots he jabbed into Louis' ribs. Louis still seems to have his teeth on edge even after Harry disappears through the revolving doors, the hiss of air he breathes out singing of revenge. Liam knows that Louis hates when he doesn't get the last word, and Liam is sure that this isn't the last Harry will hear of it. Liam is already looking forward to having Louis lean in close and whisper the ideas of some embarrassing vengeance he has planned, Liam getting the chance to fulfill his role as the ever patient point man, the Sundance to Louis' sarcastic six-shooter of a Butch Cassidy.

"Thinks he's so fucking cute," Louis says, watching as Harry leaves the terminal.

"Well, he kind of is," Liam says.

"I know," Louis says bitterly. "Dates, though. Honestly."

"Well," Liam says, taking out the two boarding passes he printed this morning, handing one off to Louis. " _We_ know they're not dates. That's what matters, right?"

"Yeah," Louis says, but his voice is a bit further away now, down in the darkened chambers of his mad scientist laboratory, the kind of low and gravelly voice Liam recognizes as the start of a grand idea. "That's all the matters, yeah."

*

The thing about Sweden that Liam can never quite get a handle on is the wild and uncertain workings of the sun. Scandinavians seem to orbit a different star than the rest of Europe, one that burns twice as long and bright in summer but shrinks to almost nothing in the winter. In January, the sun in Sweden is hung up in the sky like a silver five-pence piece compared to the golden pound coin of England, somehow further away from everything up here, almost like a second moon. It rises at nine in the morning and sets by three in the afternoon; Liam knows this because the purple and blue gloaming is already swallowing up Stockholm by the time they get out of their taxi and unlock their rented Sundbyberg apartment.

It's totally dark by the time Liam has unpacked most of his things, a few token nice shirts hung up in the closet and a whole lot of comfortable lazy clothing in the mahogany drawers. Louis is already pouring himself a glass of wine in the kitchen when Liam emerges, dressed in tartan bottoms and a blue hoodie, ready for firelight and cocoa and delicious nothing.

"Quite a place you've chosen," Louis says, swilling his wine in the glass and draining half of it in one go.

Liam looks around and nods appreciatively. The whole place is made of dark varnished wood, like a two bedroom, two bathroom sauna that's been emptied of hot coals and naked middle-aged men. The website said something like blah blah perfect example of nineteenth century upper-class Scandinavian blah blah perfect for honeymoons and history buffs blah blah giant fireplace for those coming back from a day of ski, which is the only reason Liam chose this place. Without the skiing. The fireplace is indeed huge, and over Christmas Liam had his dad teach him how to start a fire to stop Louis from setting Stockholm alight. If it were any other day Liam would have called it nice and cosy, but with Harry's smirking chuckle from this morning at the airport lodged in Liam's brain he might actually call it, well, _romantic_.

"I just wanted a big fireplace for us," Liam says. "It's like a chalet right in the middle of a city. So we could be all cosy and warm and hang out and play guitars by a crackling fire. I thought it would be nice." Liam can't help it, his voice kind of trails off at the end like he's looking for confirmation, that he did good, that Louis likes this place as fiercely and immediately as Liam does.

"It's pretty great," Louis says, nodding appreciatively as Liam breathes out a sigh of relief.

"I'm all messed up with the times. It's only five o'clock and I'm sleepy," Liam says.

Louis gives a _so what?_ shrug. "Wine?"

"Naw," Liam says, grinning. "Cocoa."

"With rum?"

"Just cocoa."

Louis sighs. "Baileys?"

"Ooh, yeah," Liam says. "Just a cheeky tipple."

"Jesus Christ," Louis mutters. "Always the party animal."

Liam gives a short _meow_ that makes Louis laugh. Liam is still riding high on his glowing holiday mood, delighted by every faucet and door handle in this house that now belongs exclusively to them. Delighted, too, by the way Louis seems to settle himself into their quiet surroundings like a chameleon, his floppy beanie and his bare feet and his old soft clothes that Liam remembers from way back at the bungalow, that week of perfect lazy nothing that Liam still aches for. Louis seems ready, just like Liam was hoping, to curl up amidst furry blankets in front of a fire like dopey Viking teenagers and do absolutely nothing they planned on achieving (write at least two songs, book some studio time, meet with some producers.) That was the convenient excuse Liam used when convincing Louis, and their handlers, to justify a trip so soon before tour; this would be a business holiday, Liam promised, getting up at eight and working diligently on the next album. Really, though, Liam just wanted a bit of time off in another country and even though it's a little naughty – he was fully prepared to tell some white lies to get it. Now he's just counting on Louis' love of laziness and fun to turn this trip into the failed ambition Liam hoped it would be.

"We've got an X-Box," Liam says, hoping Louis will take the bait, letting the first day burn out with nothing done at all.

"Call of Duty?" Louis asks, making Liam grin again. He can always count on Louis.

"You'll kick my butt," Liam says.

"Then you can be on my team," Louis says from behind his wine glass, taking a sip. "All right?"

"All right," Liam says, his cheeks glowing as he digs into his suitcase for the packs of instant cocoa he thoughtfully brought along for just this occasion.

*

The early dark throws Liam for a loop. He feels exhausted by six o'clock, and being buried under a mound of blankets in front of a nice fire, getting blown up by rocket launchers while Louis, tucked in at his side, yells at him for being a useless fucking teammate just exacerbates the sticky sleepiness tugging at his muscles. Everything is as it should be, the smooth stretch of videogames and Louis and _nothing_ as nice as crawling into a bed with freshly laundered sheets. Liam feels his eyes get heavy but he doesn't quite nod off, just drifts in this in-between place where his character on screen is running repeatedly into walls and Liam can feel the steady pulse of Louis' heartbeart in his ribs where their sides meet between two thin layers of cotton.

"Food?" Liam manages to mumble out, knowing that he needs to move and do something or he's going to be curled against Louis' side fast asleep through the evening. 

"Yeah, man," Louis says without looking up from the game. They're playing against two teenage kids from America, and Louis, somehow, is beating both of them on his own, Liam about as useful as a chocolate teapot with the way he keeps accidentally killing himself with his own grenades.

"What do you want?" Liam says, stretching and crawling out of their shared mound of duvets and quilts. He doesn't have a very extensive recipe book, but the things he does know how to make are all rich and fatty and cheesy and comforting and exactly what he knows Louis craves almost all of the time. 

"Can you make your cheese on toast things?"

"Rarebit?"

" _Yeah_ ," Louis hums. "And can you get me another glass of wine?"

"Sure," Liam says, shuffling into the kitchen in socked feet. 

The kitchen is a nice mix of granite and that beautiful dark wood that runs through the apartment like the steady bass line of a good song. Before arriving at the apartment they picked up some food from a Coop grocer, bags of crisps and cheese and bread and sweets that Liam begins to unpack methodically. With their spare amount of food packed up in the cabinets and refrigerator (a proper grocery trip is in order tomorrow,) Liam pours himself a glass of milk and Louis a glass of wine and starts slicing up some cheddar cheese for dinner.

With the rarebit in the oven for toasting and Louis' drink faithfully delivered, Liam rips open a bag of wine gums and watches the city through the broad windows about the kitchen sink. Stockholm is like a made-up little cartoon town, endless rows of tall and narrow buildings done up in Crayon colours, soft reds and oranges and yellows, each city block like a mixed up Rubik's cube. It's starting to snow a bit, not the fat and dreamy flakes of ideal Christmases, more drizzle in the cold. Copper-coloured streetlamps light up these eddies and currents of snow like moths around lightbulbs, a soft fuzz over the night like a thumb smearing wet ink. A thin dusting of icing sugar snow coats the roads and footpaths, catching the light and glowing softly like flaked gold. Liam drinks his cold milk and smiles, glad for the trip he made happen and glad for the bad choices that are sure to come and glad for the sound of machine guns and Louis' triumphant little grunts when an explosion goes off in the next room.

"Lou?" Liam calls out.

"Yeah?"

"Come look at this," Liam says.

Louis usually refuses to quit a game midway through, but this time, for some reason, he just drops his controller and takes his glass of wine into the kitchen. He stands there, glass poised to his lips, and looks out over Stockholm with Liam, the static crackle of snow falling and the Crayola housefronts lit up like a belated Christmas display.

"It's really nice, isn't it?" Liam says. 

Louis takes a sip from his wine, nodding slowly like he's either agreeing with the taste or with the view or maybe the sommelier's combination of the two. "Yeah," he breathes out, a simple smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "It actually is. Like, I can't even come up with a proper joke making fun of you for sighing wistfully at a snow-strewn Swedish street, because it's actually proper beautiful."

"You could try," Liam says, turning on the light of the oven to check on their dinner.

"Well, for a start, you're sighing wistfully at a snow-strewn Swedish street," Louis says. "That's some pretty good material to hold over your head. When I tell the lads I might say there was a tear in the corner of your eye."

Liam opens the oven door and, with a pair of Union Jack oven mitts, pulls out the baking sheet of toast covered in bubbling melted cheese, sliding it onto the kitchen counter. "It gets worse, actually," Liam says.

"Why?"

"Well," Liam says, heading to the fridge. Opening the door, he pulls out a chocolate frosted cupcake with an unlit candle speared in the middle, one he bought secretly while Louis was messing about with the weirdly named Swedish chocolate bars. Using one of the long fireplace matches, Liam strikes it and sets light to the candle. "This whole thing is kind of my birthday present to you. If that's okay," Liam says, sliding the crushed, deformed cupcake over to Louis. "I didn't know what to get you but you always go on about how much you loved Sweden, so. I ended up booking everything, like, six months ago and didn't tell you and just pretended like we were just having a slapdash adventure. Just, like. Just in case you wanted to make fun of me for that too."

"Really?" Louis deadpans, though he's quite clearly trying to stop smiling despite himself. " _Really?_ " he says again as Liam puts the cupcake down in front of him. "I don't even remember what _day_ your birthday is."

"You bought me two turtles and a giant aquarium and hired men to come and set it up and then you got Leona Lewis to send me a voicemail wishing me happy birthday and then you had a two-tier red velvet birthday cake delivered in the evening," Liam says. "On the right day, too."

"It's in September, right?" Louis says, not blushing but his smile kind of drawn out like he's trying to stop from laughing. 

"Happy Birthday, dude," Liam says, nudging the cupcake towards Louis a bit more. "Before it's covered in wax, Lou."

"You're unbearable," Louis says, still smiling. "Just genuinely awful."

Louis blows out the birthday candle while Liam sets their dinner on plates, sliding some stools up to the large kitchen island. The two of them sit across from each other, glasses of wine and mugs of cocoa and cheese on toast and the perfect flower of a chocolate cupcake between them.

"You know," Liam says, cutting off his first piece of cheesy bread, "if we didn't know exactly what this was – which is best friends having an adventure, yeah – I could... I could kind of see where Harry was coming from."

Louis grunts, takes a mouthful of cupcake before he even starts on his rarebit. "Thinks he's so fucking _clever_."

"I mean, it's just what we do, and sometimes what we do involves goofy stupid things like bringing you to Sweden for your birthday, because that's just _us_ , right? But you could see how it might be funny to someone who didn't know us." Liam says quietly while Louis watches him curiously. "Like, cosying up by a fire sharing blankets and a bottle of wine. I'm just saying I could see why Harry would think we're, like, dating or whatever. But that's not – I mean, I'd never do that with Andy or any of the lads back home. I don't even think I've slept in the same bed as Andy, to be honest."

"Cause Andy is a fucking twat," Louis says, swilling his wine. "Remember how fucking long it took me to get you to realise that, like, hugging wasn't a big fucking deal? That you could touch me like a friend and I wouldn't call you a poof? That you could come and cuddle if you wanted a nap without that actually being a fucking _thing_?"

Liam blushes. "That was a long time ago. I got over that."

"I know," Louis says, a smirk blooming at the corner of his mouth. "You wouldn't even let me kiss you when I was drunk. Cured you of _that_ , didn't I? Trained you well and good."

Liam grins. "But, see. That's what I mean. If normal people from back home saw us act like that, they'd think I fancied you or something. Like Harry was saying."

Louis' eyes narrow then, and mischief plays in a major key over his lips. "Yeah, they would. They would get that idea."

"Louis?"

Louis' grin is just a shade below devilish, a glint in his eye like the stainless steel edge of a knife. Clearly the bubbling and percolating beakers in the laboratory of Louis' brain have yielded a result, and Louis drinks that potion like Dr. Jekyll turning into Mr. Hyde. "Why _don't_ we let him think it?" Louis says, his voice curling like a snake. "If Harry's going to be so fucking funny about it, how about we rub it in his face? While we're in Sweden we'll just act like we're dating, do dating things, but pretend like it's nothing. I mean, real dating things, like. Really obvious stuff that'll get him going."

"Like what?" Liam asks, taking another forkful of dinner. 

"I don't know. Candlelit dinners. Wine tasting. Fuck, whatever it is that boring couples do. We'll keep escalating it, but pretend like it's nothing." Louis smirks, taking another pull from his wine. "I mean, we know we're just mates, but if _he_ thinks we're secretly dating or whatever, let's have fun with him. Really mess with him. I do rather like leading Harry on, you know."

Liam likes the idea from the start, always likes when Louis comes up something to screw about with the other lads. From the very start Louis has always had a really good grip on each of their personalities, could always figure out exactly the right thing to say to get a blush, or a punch, or a laugh from each of them. Especially Harry. There's nothing Liam likes more than helping Louis on one of his larks. Besides, they do all those things anyway, dinners and shopping trips and going to the cinema, so the extra bonus of teasing Harry with it is just icing on the cake, or the cupcake, the cupcake Louis is now mashing into Liam's face.

"Louis," Liam says, touching his tongue to the tip of his nose to lick off the chocolate frosting. "That's not how a boyfriend acts on a first date."

Louis gives a sharp and gleeful laugh, goes to take a long drink of his wine. "Perfect. Fuck, it'll drive him mad. You know how he hates when I hide things from him. This is perfect."

"Cheers," Liam says, raising his cocoa and Baileys and clinking it with Louis' glass of wine. "To fake boyfriends."

"To fake boyfriends."

*

Liam is the first to wake up, as always. It's snowing again, and the icing of last night has developed into a few good inches of white buttercream frosting slathered on every roof and car and the edges of the kitchen windows. It lends everything a caved-in feeling, like they've been stranded somewhere up in Lapland with only their rations and each other for survival, like they couldn't open the front door for fear of being caught in an avalanche. It's the perfect feeling for a day in, Liam thinks, for lazing about eating chocolate and playing Call of Duty until Louis kicks him off the team.

Liam sets the kettle to boil and begins to make a full breakfast for Louis. Rashers of streaky bacon, toast, baked beans, an egg sunny-side up, tea, orange juice. He sets the table, moving in sly, sneaky motions to keep as quiet as he can, wanting Louis to wake up to a finished breakfast, one of several small birthday presents Liam has planned that he can't really wrap.

Everything is going to plan – the table set, the toast buttered and piled on a plate, the tea steeping in the pot – and Liam is just finishing the bacon when the inevitable happens. He's only dressed in one of Niall's tank tops that he stole last summer and a pair of too-small boxer shorts that only reach half-way down his thighs; when he flips over one of the strips of bacon a fat glob of oil spits out of the pan and hits his arm, another on his leg, another in the middle of his chest. Liam shouts, a strangled curse as he leaps away from the stove, slapping the burning spots wildly before clapping his hands on his mouth to keep from screeching out again. Well, shit.

Louis' bedroom door creaks open. He's got a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, and underneath Liam can tell he's only in his boxer-briefs. Rubbing his eyes with one hand, he shoots Liam a withering glare until he notices the table covered in food, his nostrils flaring at the smell of bacon.

"Are you – are you making me breakfast?" Louis asks. 

"Yeah," Liam says sheepishly. "Wanted to surprise you."

Louis eyes light up. "Oh, that's perfect. This is exactly what I had in mind," Louis says. "Wait, go back to cooking, I wanna send a picture of this to Harry."

"What? Why?" Liam says, still rubbing the spot on his thigh where the oil burned an angry red blotch.

"For the fake dating thing, this is perfect," Louis says, sneaking back into his bedroom and coming back with his mobile.

"Oh, right," Liam says, smiling automatically. "Exactly. Right, yeah."

Liam goes back to (carefully) flipping bacon and he can hear the faint clicks of Louis' iPhone, the gleeful laugh he gives when he sends them off to Harry. Liam didn't realise they had already started with this game, his dumb plan of making Louis an English breakfast just a casual gesture, something he's done a dozen times before. It's only when he hears the noise of a new text message that Liam realises how little he's wearing, how even innocently making Louis a belated birthday breakfast somehow unintentionally screams _dating_ loud enough to shatter a wine glass. As Liam finishes up cooking he wonders about how much he's managed to miss over the last two years, things that at the time just seemed honestly friendly and nothing to do with dating, things that Liam did just for the sake of getting a smile out of Louis. Everything feels suddenly suspect, like a book read in a whole new translation, little details he missed on his first go through. He wonders how he looks when he smiles at Louis. He wonders what the boys think when he says _yes_ to Louis before he even finds out what kind of favour is being asked. He wonders how he looks when he thinks no one is watching. And he blushes.

"What'd he say?" Liam asks quickly, piling the almost-burnt bacon (just the way Louis likes, Liam remembers) on a paper towel. 

Louis digs a bottle of Tuborg out of the fridge and pops open the cap on the dull edge of the granite counter. "He just said ' _see?_ ' like he knew all about it, the tosser. I think we have to, like, start going bigger, better. Making me breakfast is cute but, like, we do that for each other all the time. Zayn _always_ makes you breakfast. It's not big enough. We need to start thinking of like, romantic comedy type things. On the way back to London you might need to run through the airport to tell me you love me, just a heads up."

Liam puts the plate of bacon down on the table, completing his morning masterpiece. "So what do we do?" Liam says, helping himself to some toast and taking a sip of his tea. "How can I make a big gesture to show how much I fake love you?" Liam asks, and he's laughing but it doesn't sound so bad actually. Underneath this game of pretend, Liam does just really like doing things for Louis, playing his role in the dramas Louis creates. It's been their unspoken little agreement for the last few months, a quiet promise to each other to stay close, to share little disasters and wild fireworks and the burning coals and embers of best mates, filling up the empty places in each other like opposite poles of a magnet. Doing things for Louis for no reason other than his grin and the promise of danger has kind of become Liam's thing lately.

"How about dinner, tonight?" Louis says, taking a sip of his lager and smacking his lips appreciatively. "Some expensive place, big bottle of red wine, romantic lighting."

"Who says best mates can't enjoy a nice dinner with a few candles, huh?" Liam says, ready to start playing this game in earnest.

"Exactly," Louis says, crunching off a chunk of bacon. "Fuck, man, this is perfect, you're the best."

"No problem," Liam says, feeling the tips of his ears burn. "If I promise to try my hardest can I be on your Call of Duty team again?"

Louis considers him for a long moment, looking down at the mound of bacon waiting for him. "God, who could say no to you right now?"

*

Louis picks their restaurant, one of the most expensive in Stockholm – which, for Stockholm, is saying something – and casually drops his name to get them a reservation that night. They normally hate doing that, but something about the rules of this game makes it okay. It's a fake date, why not be ridiculous and obvious about it?

"Now," Louis says, putting down his phone once he secures them a coveted seven o'clock slot. "We're doing this properly. Best clothes you've got, shower, shave. I want to be taken there in style, Payne."

"Yes, sir," Liam says, grinning as he flops back on the couch, picking up his controller.

"And you're paying. You seem like that kind of boyfriend," Louis says, sliding in next to Liam on the couch, going slack and boneless beside him, slumping against Liam's shoulder while Liam draws the blankets back over the both of them. 

"I am, actually," Liam replies, starting the game up again. "I'm very thoughtful, you'll find. You're gonna be treated like a prince," he says, laughing now.

"I want everyone in that restaurant to envy our young, fake love," Louis says, pink sliver of tongue bitten between his teeth as negotiates the maze of the game, focused on taking Liam down. "I want them to be sickened by how much we fake love each other."

"So I should secretly order the nicest bottle of champagne they have in the place?"

"It's meant to be a _secret_ ," Louis says, a sly smile. 

"And I should slide the waiter twenty quid to hide the engagement ring in your dessert, right?"

"God, Liam," Louis says, punching his thigh. "You're not supposed to _tell_ me."

"Right, sorry," Liam says, grinning. "I've only been your fake boyfriend for half a day, I'm learning."

"You better," Louis says, executing Liam's character on screen with a neatly placed rocket propelled grenade. "This might be a scam, but I expect to be treated right."

"And where do we stand on pet names?" Liam asks.

"The standard," Louis says, a flurry of bullets and a loud _ha!_ as he kills Liam again. "Babe. Darling. Love. You know."

"But we use those, like, normally," Liam says, giving up on trying to kill Louis, running from him instead. "How is that any different from usual?"

"Oh," Louis says. "Huh."

"Sweetie? Doll?"

Louis scrunches his face like he bit into a lemon. "Maybe we're not the type of couple who use pet names."

"Yeah," Liam says, smiling as he gets blown up yet again. "That does seem like the kind of couple we'd be."

*

Louis sets everything up just right. He positions the candle so it's between the two of them, the bottle of champagne in its sterling silver bucket off to the side, the remains of their (shared) apricot and almond soufflé with two spoons artfully arranged.

"Okay, now, pretend like you're laughing at something I said," Louis says, taking out his iPhone.

Liam throws his head back, eyes squinting, and he hears Louis sigh. "What?"

"Dial it down, man. Maybe pretend I just whispered something filthy about what I want to do to you when we get back to the apartment."

"Oh," Liam says, smiling and feeling his cheeks go hot. "This is only our second date, man."

"Yes, that, perfect," Louis says, taking the shot. He laughs when he checks the picture, thumbing in a quick message.

"What are you writing?"

" _Dinner time_ ," Louis says, turning the phone over to Liam. "I think you look pretty good." In the picture Liam is lit up in the bronze light of the flame, his smile a little shy, the blush not obvious but noticeable along the lines of his cheekbones. Short fuzzy hair, the top button of his Oxford cotton shirt undone, his eyes reflecting the candles as he gazes at the photographer from across the table. 

"It's all right," Liam mumbles, handing the phone back. He's still not entirely sure how this is different than any other time they have dinner – well, okay, yes, Liam did have to bribe their waiter a fistful of krona to get the candle – but it makes Louis laugh which is enough for Liam. This birthday gift is becoming a strange one, but Liam decides that he will see it through to the end for Louis' sake. Besides, Liam learned a long time ago that it's much easier to just play along with Louis' games and see where they bring you. Struggling only drowns you faster.

Louis phone buzzes, and when he opens the text he just starts laughing, showing it to Liam. 

_YOU ARE ON A DATE!!!!!!!! A DATE!!!!_

Liam laughs and this funny feeling gets him right in the stomach, this sudden desire to have a picture of this, this moment right here with the two of them laughing hard enough to attract the snotty glares of nearby diners, to remember Louis' scrunched up nose and swoop of soft hair. Fake dating Louis is funny, sure, but it doesn't even compare to the feel of his knee bumping against Liam's under the table, the hiccup of a laugh he has when he reads the text again and takes another sip of champagne, the shared joke, the joyful edge in his voice when he slaps Liam's shoulder and says: "Harry's biting. It's actually working. Fucking sick, man." 

"You know, as good as the – the tuna tartare and the veal tornado or whatever it was, I'm still kind of hungry," Liam says.

"Yeah?" Louis says, laughter still etched at the corner of his mouth. "Cause I'm fucking starving."

"We could get McDonald's take away and then I'll let you win at Call of Duty."

" _Let_?" Louis says, taking the last mouthful of wine.

"Yeah, man," Liam says, scooting his chair away from the table. "I'll go easy on you."

Louis smirks, clinks his empty champagne flute against Liam's. "You're on."

*

On a couch full of blankets and Big Mac wrappers and empty boxes of chicken nuggets, Liam and Louis shoot each other to death until the early hours of the morning. It can't be terribly hard for Louis because Liam keeps drifting in and out of sleep, scrunched up into a ball of a boy next to Louis, his hands going slack on the controller as his character accidentally leaps off tall cliffs or runs into sandbagged corners.

They switch to fighting against the computer, their score running into the negative, while Liam drifts back and forth, napping until he's caught up in the eddy of one of Louis' shouts of success or growling groans of loss. The noises Louis makes, reverberated in Liam's chest like the hollow of a guitar, play in the back of Liam's dozing half-dreams, giving them a texture and colour and light that sings in that key of Louis. 

"Wait, shit, don't move," Louis says as Liam winks an eye open at two thirty in the morning.

"What?" Liam asks, his voice scratchy.

"You were asleep on my shoulder, I wanted to send it to Harry. Could you close your eyes again?"

Liam does so, hears the click, opens them again. "But I really was. I mean, that wasn't fake, I'm exhausted. And I do that all the time, anyway."

"It's cool," Louis says, smiling and rubbing Liam's fuzzy shaved head. "It just looked like, you know. How it looked."

"How did it look?" Liam asks, still sticky with sleep and lazily honest.

"I don't know, just, fake boyfriends, you know?" Louis says, sliding his phone onto the side table.

"Wasn't fake though," Liam mumbles, resting his head back on Louis' shoulder, closing his eyes. "Was real."

"Yeah," Louis says, breathing out slowly, a zen-like wash of calm coming over them as he quits the game. "I know it was."

*

Stopping for a moment in front of a slick Swedish clothing store to admire the window display was a mistake, Liam realises. Without warning, he hears Louis' laugh and a moment later the shock of cold as Louis dumps two handfuls of snow down the back of Liam's coat.

Giving a sharp yelp – alarming nearby Swedes, making a dog bark – Liam hops away, flailing as he tries to shake the snow out.

"You know," Liam says in that world-weary tone he reserves for Louis, unzipping the burgundy and cream Letterman jacket he stole off Zayn, "I thought that maybe you wouldn't do that now."

"Why would you ever think that?" Louis says, the knife edge of his smirk mocking and sweet. 

"Cause we're pretend dating and you should be nicer to me if we are," Liam says, scooping snow out from underneath his t-shirt. 

"Only makes me want to shove snow in your clothes more," Louis says. "You ought to know by now that the more I like you the more I want to embarrass you in public."

Liam tries to give a pouty frown but it doesn't quite work, smiling despite himself. "Well, if we're together then maybe you shouldn't shove snow in my pants, might need to take them off," Liam says, surprising himself even, blushing a bit but loving Louis' slack-jawed expression.

"Wow," Louis says, a smile of new joking appreciation for Liam. "Haven't even had our third date yet. Naughty boy, maybe I'm rubbing off on you."

"Not yet you aren't. Maybe tonight," Liam says, and now he really does go red.

Louis laughs loud and earnestly, jabbing Liam in his ribs. "Fuck, save this for when we get back home. This is fucking perfect."

"I try," Liam says, letting himself get pulled into Louis' headlock, the crook of Louis' arm wrenching him in as they go stumbling off down the street. "I try really hard, actually."

"How about you buy me lunch, then?" Louis says. "Date number three."

"You're spoiling me," Liam says in a dead-pan, the lock loosening and Liam just sticking by Louis' side as they walk down the slushy streets of Stockholm.

"Yeah, yeah," Louis says, rubbing Liam's prickly hair for luck like the Buddha's belly for the ninth time that day. "And since you're being a good boyfriend like you ought to, you have to get the take away and do the dishes and buy me some liquor for tonight."

"Ha," Liam breathes out. "Yeah, all right." And it's funny, because Liam is pretty sure if he'd do all of that anyway.

*

"You wanna go say hi to some of the girls outside?" Liam asks, looking down at the street and the knot of teenagers standing across the street from their flat, all of them bundled up in jackets and scarves, their vigil going into the sixth hour now.

Louis lolls on the couch, stretching out long like a dog with his head hanging over the edge of the cushion, looking up at Liam upside down. "If you want to."

"There's not that many of them," Liam says, stepping away from the window to a chorus of shouting. "We should at least give a few hugs."

"And what do I get out of it?" Louis says, his face going red through blood and gravity. 

"What? Why do you need to get something out of it? I'm not getting anything, it's just a nice thing to do."

"Oh, shut up," Louis drawls. "You fucking love it."

"It's nice when there's not that many of them," Liam says, shrugging. "Plus, Swedish girls are well good."

Louis rolls sideways off the couch, landing on his fingers and toes like a martial artist, jumping up to standing. He gives Liam a withering look, the kind of look he reserves for when Liam is playing too keen and optimistic for Louis' tastes. He gives Liam a once over, blowing out a breath like exhaling from a cigarette, with his hip cocked slightly and his arms crossed over his chest, biceps hard and the threads of pale blue veins embossed along his forearms. "All right," Louis says, his voice slick and playful as he steps into Liam's space, his eyes darting quickly down and then back up to his face. "You're wearing my onesie, though."

Liam laughs, but Louis seems dead serious. "Why? How is that – dating, like?"

"It isn't," Louis says, wandering into his bedroom and returning with the ash grey onesie folded over his arm. He throws it at Liam's chest. "This is purely for my own entertainment." Louis pauses, giving Liam a sharp glance, jerking his head like he expects Liam to change this second. "Oh, by the way," Louis adds as Liam unfolds the onesie, holding it up. "You're going naked under there, bro."

Liam stares blankly at Louis, like he's waiting for the punchline. "Really?"

Louis nods, looking very bored, rolling a wave from his wrist to encourage Liam.

Liam knows it's a challenge, a whole bunch of challenges all knotted together with Louis' smug expectation. There is definitely some kind of boundary here that Louis is trying to push, some line in the sand that Louis is wiping away like he's the high tide. It's getting hard not to wonder if Louis is doing all of this just to test just how far Liam is willing to go, how much he's willing to do just because Louis asked. 

Liam has seen Louis do this with Harry since the beginning, pushing him to change the lyrics of their songs to something dirty, stealing his food without complaint, getting him to strip down in front of strangers just for the fun of having Harry obey Louis' every command. Liam always loved the easy way that happened – and sure, he laughed at Harry at the time – but then sometimes Liam would catch them after one of these public embarrassments (making Harry walk around their green room naked, say, or making Harry ask for a guy's mobile number in a German beergarden) when Louis would touch Harry's cheek and put an arm around his shoulder, nuzzling into Harry's neck when he thought no one was looking. Liam had never seen anything like it before, had never known a person who loves like Louis does, all Catherine wheels and Roman candles, the public pride of acting like a dickhead and the private shame of his need for love. Liam was cautious and wary at first but it really didn't take long for that feeling to bleed so easily into wanting Louis' laughter, to be the Huck Finn to his Tom Sawyer playing pirates, to crave his barbed sting and raking claws, to be Louis' grinning blood-red target.

It's why Liam smiles now, turning to a smirk when he meets Louis' eye. Going naked under a onesie in winter in a Swedish street in front of fans really _is_ too much, too far, every bit of Jiminy Cricket good conscience telling Liam to say no, but then he catches Louis' glance. There's a flicker in Louis' eye, like he's expecting, waiting for Liam to refuse just so he could hold it against him, could shame him about not being in this for the long haul, and Liam knows then exactly what he's going to do. 

They might be faking it, but Liam's still going to let Louis ruin his life in all the best ways.

"All right," Liam says, pulling off his jumper. It's not like once upon a time they swore an oath to each other as they fell into this friendship but somewhere along the line _this_ became their thing. This twinned nonsense, this joined fate and love of mischief, the way their mutually assured destruction has begun to define them like the matching screw tattoos burned into their ankles, screw friends, best friends smugly trying to one up each other in a dirty, messy ball of love and danger. Liam often wonders what his life would be like if Louis had never happened to him – this life with Louis like living at the foot of an active volcano, sharing a rowboat with a Bengal tiger, appeasing a dragon with dares fulfilled and never backing down to a challenge – but as he undoes the knot in his pyjama bottoms and tugs them down Liam knows it wouldn't be nearly as much fun without Louis.

Louis tries to hide his surprise with a smirk, but there's still a moment where he opens his mouth like he's going to say something, a fidgeted word he buries back down. The look he settles on is half amused and half impressed, like he's making a mental note that their social suicide pact runs deeper than he ever expected.

Liam strips naked in front of Louis and steps into the onesie, zipping it up to his sternum with a grin thrown at Louis like moving a bishop and putting Louis in check. _Your move_ , Liam smirks, taking Louis by the hand and leading him to the door.

"What?" Louis says flatly, clearly uneasy with how obediently Liam is playing along.

"Oh, nothing," Liam says, drawing it out deliciously. The onesie smells of Louis, stale fabric softener and the minty shampoo he uses, and it's too short in the cuffs, and Liam takes the moment all snug in Louis' clothes to enjoy the sharp look of suspicion in Louis' eyes. "I was just thinking about how to pay you back for this."

Louis clenches his jaw, the slight pop of the joint going in his cheek. "Liam."

"Come on, you can dish it but you can't take it?" Liam says, overly cheerful. "Let's go meet some fans. I'm naked under my onesie, just like I promised."

Louis' grin is sharp and bitter, letting Liam lead him by the hand, his reluctant and shuffling walk saying a lot about how maybe this boyfriend thing is getting a little out of hand. But Louis would never, _could_ never admit to it, too proud of winning his own games, and not for the first time does Liam realise that doing exactly what Louis says is a lot more fun than ever saying no.

*

They spend a half hour outside in the cool Swedish night, shaking hands with the girls, giving hugs and photos and autographs. Liam probably should have expected it – fake boyfriends, low threshold for boredom, a game of top trumps getting more intense by the day – but somehow he's still caught by surprise when Louis grabs the zipper of the onesie and pulls it down as far as he can, the girls suddenly screaming while Liam bats Louis away, twisting around to protect his modesty. Bare-chested, skin covered in goosepimples, the first brush of dark hair leading down from his bellybutton exposed, Liam zips himself back up and, laughing and punching Louis in the chest, plans the next move in this pinching and biting and laughing and embarrassing explosion they've begun to call dating.

*

The last night in Sweden is exactly what Liam wanted, those few months of planning and convincing and conniving to weasel out a small holiday totally worth it just for this evening. As the dull metal button of the sun drops behind the thin horizon in the early afternoon Louis and Liam find themselves curling up on the big overstuffed couch like some soft gravity is pulling them there, wolves in a winter den. It all falls into place then: take away dinner from a funny Swedish chain called Max Hamburgers, a few cans of pear cider (one of the few drinks Liam likes, edging more towards fizzy fruit juice than booze), a flurry of snow outside their windows, and the first _Godfather_ playing on the fancy LCD telly.

Every so often Liam will catch Louis mouthing along to the words, a sly gangster grin on his face. _Leave the gun, take the cannoli_. A delighted expression, a lot like the kid he's only just starting to grow out of. Louis must have seen the film a hundred times but he still looks so damn happy when he watches it; Liam likes that grin so much that he's willing to sit through the three hours of this stupid film whenever Louis wants.

Liam's fingertips buzz with the heat of alcohol, heat in his cheeks and his jaw aching from the grin he can't seem to wipe off his face. Fake dating Louis has been remarkably easy, really not much change from how they normally act. Actually, Louis seems to appreciate the small things Liam has always done for him (making his bed, fixing him another scotch and soda, wrapping leftover pizza and putting it in the fridge) more now that it's all under the name of their grand game. There are a few more overdramatic flourishes, maybe, or the odd term of endearment, or the laughter that comes when Louis rests his head on Liam's lap as he plays Call of Duty and demolishes some college guys from halfway around the world with a flamethrower, but it all becomes easily familiar.

Really, the only noticeable difference between being friends with Louis and dating him is the way Louis keeps crowing about it, insisting on catching all these little moments of comfortable nothing that he can send off to Harry with a laugh. Liam isn't bothered by it much because what they end up with is a scrapbook of their boring Swedish adventure in fuzzy iPhone photos with bad lighting: Liam making Louis breakfast in nothing but his boxers; the ice on Liam's eyelashes after Louis threw a snowball in his face; Liam crouched down with an inch of underwear showing, stoking the great lion's roar of a fire; Liam napping on Louis' shoulder (and thigh, and leg, and stomach); Liam grimacing as he holds up a bag of lutfisk and a jar of pickled herring in a Swedish supermarket; Liam, shirtless, posing with flexed biceps after a shower, towel like the Swedish flag tied loosely around his waist. 

Midnight hits with the chirrup of a cuckoo clock in the kitchen, the one that Liam has had to stop Louis four times from stealing. They don't really talk about it or make a plan, it just happens in the way that these things do that Louis stands up and walks towards the bedroom, Liam grabbing the mounds of pillows and blankets and following him wordlessly.

They build a fall-down, ramshackle, Weasley Burrow of a blanket fort. A little tipsy and a lot tired, they give up trying to get the roof to stay up and just flop down in the eye of the hurricane, a bunker of pillows. Louis docks his iPhone in his speakers and puts on some Snow Patrol, turned down to a low volume like a silver whisper in the air, and takes his place next to Liam again.

The music is the only noise between them for a few hours, going through midnight and into one, two o'clock, Snow Patrol giving way to Coldplay, giving way finally to Frank Ocean, dreamy and whispering. Liam loses himself to half-sleep even though he knows Louis will be annoyed he's missing the music, he just so badly wants to get lost here. The hazy blur and muted fireworks of the songs fill the air like the northern lights, the taste of cider is sweet and sour in Liam's mouth, Louis' body burning like a welder's torch along Liam's side where they're pressed up together. He hits some kind of perfect place then, a perfect minute of time that seems to stretch out and loop around him like a long scarf, seconds like hours, the metronome of Louis' breathing keeping time with the music. And then Liam kind of gets it.

Liam takes Louis' hand and laces their fingers together. "Hey, take a picture of this to send to Harry," Liam says. He doesn't even care if Harry sees it or not, he just wants to remember this night, the way he's wrapped up in a purple hoodie, the music like bruises of blue and black on the backs of their eyelids, and most of all Louis' private little smile, the same one he gets when he shares a joke, a hobby, a story with Liam. Sweden, good old Sweden.

"Don't have my phone," Louis mumbles, not letting go of Liam's hand. "We'll just have to tell him we listened to Frank Ocean and held hands at one in the morning."

"Two," Liam says.

"Two," Louis agrees. "Or we can just recreate it at a later date. Maybe have him see it in person."

"But I want to remember today," Liam murmurs, feeling sleep wrap around him like iron chains, dragging him down into the fluff and goosedown of their pillow fort. "This has kind of been the best time I've had in months."

"We didn't do nowt," Louis says, his smile infectious.

"Yeah," Liam says. "That was your gift. Two days of nothing. Happy Birthday."

Louis laughs, a bright and earnest laugh. "You do know me well, Payne."

"You really don't have your phone on you?" Liam asks, too lazy and comfortable to go to the kitchen to get his own.

"Sorry," Louis says, and then pauses for a moment. Quickly, Louis leans toward Liam and plants a single confident kiss on the left corner of his mouth, the taste of wine and his smile soft and simple. "There," Louis says, rolling back to his spot. "Now you have something to remember it by."

"Aw, Tommo," Liam says, feeling heat rise to his cheeks. "You're such a soft touch when you're a boyfriend, I had no idea. And there wasn't even anyone around to see it."

"Ah, well," Louis mumbles. 

It's funny how little that changes, how they can immediately sink back into their comfortable whatever. Best friends kiss, that's normal. Harry's always said that, usually when he's crawling over Niall to bite a kiss into his lower lip. It doesn't happen a lot but enough that Liam isn't that troubled by the way he can still feel the brush of Louis' stubble on his jaw, how his lips tingle just a little bit, how he wouldn't mind if it happened a few more times. The language of friendship has never made a lot of sense to Liam, those things always buried under a healthy amount of teasing and biting and wrestling, so he likes when he gets the real and unmistakeable tokens of it, the things he knows for sure means they really like him, things that he can keep and polish like gold medals and trophies. That one little kiss.

And he still hasn't let go of Louis' hand.

*

Liam knows that once they get back to London he will really have to up his game. The odd picture of a nice dinner and a sleepy game of Call of Duty together is enough when they're miles away, but when they see the boys again they're really going to have to prove the depths of their fake love with receipts and ticket stubs and the blunt red blossoms of love bites. Louis made it very clear to Liam on their last day in Sweden that they can't for one minute slip up in their plan, that this is a war now and Harry will do his best to wear them down, waiting for that crucial mistake when he can pounce, and they can't let that happen.

Liam doesn't entirely remember why this is happening, can't remember which side Harry is on anymore (does he want to prove they are dating? aren't?), but Liam just nods and swears an oath and promises that he won't let Louis down. Though, really, he's not sure of how he'd go about doing that either.

The problem is that Liam can't quite figure out how this is any different than how they normally act. When Louis talks about how they have to have nights over at each other's flat, how they need to see a film every week and have dinner in public together at least twice, how Liam needs to sit next to Louis every chance he gets, Liam just cannot figure out why those things might stand out in particular. He's been doing all of that for months, long before they got caught up in messing with Harry, just the quiet habit of being Louis' friend and sticking by his side. Liam is dedicated to the cause but it's beginning to feel like the line between _friends_ and _romance_ is broken and smudged, has always been that way, and Liam has no idea where he stands now he realises that the goal posts have been moved down the pitch without him noticing.

"This was a good trip," Louis says, standing in line next to Liam at the Scandinavian Airlines desk. He sounds oddly reflective, serious almost. It's a break in the constant stream of delighted giggles he had, showing Harry every single moment in a text message. "We should do it again."

"Where to next?" Liam asks, leaning an arm on Louis' shoulder, the leather of his bag's strap cool against Liam's skin. 

"Well, I've got this nine month trip around the world I thought you might like to come with me on," Louis murmurs. Liam notices that Louis moves carefully as they shuffle in line, keeping time with Liam so they can stay linked like they are. Louis is softer now too, talking to Liam with a kind of plain earnestness, nothing wrapped up in sarcasm or teasing, almost like he's a little weatherbeaten by exhaustion and the brush of Liam's arm and the holidays. Some kind of intermission has been called in their game, injury time running over in this airport, just this in-between place as they're heading home like a chance to breathe before the next performance.

"Yeah, we could do that," Liam says, laughing. "What about when we get back, though? How are we going to, uh, trick Harry?"

Louis wonders on his pause, looking over at Liam all curious and determined. "Invite them over to yours tomorrow and I'll sleep over with you tonight. They'll show up and I'll, I don't know, be wearing one of your jumpers or something. Acting cosy, like I belong at your place." Louis has a dreamy tilt to his voice, a distance like a telescope to the stars, his focus drifting to the ideas he's obviously spent some time thinking about, plots he's been hatching over the last couple days.

"Okay," Liam says quietly, to match Louis. "We can definitely do that."

"Make a big show of it," Louis says.

"Yeah," Liam agrees.

"Really, like," he pauses, looking at Liam, their glances meeting in the no-man's-land of the joke, where the shine of laughter has worn down to real things, soft things. "Really make them think I stayed over."

"It's good," Liam says, now not even sure if they're playing the game right now. Usually he's pretty good at going along with Louis' schemes but this time everything is all mixed up, camouflaged, land mines popping up in ordinary conversations, no clear line between the civilian and the military of their jokes. "You know, you don't have to act. You – you do belong at my place, man. You're my mate. This isn't, like, weird."

Louis blinks a few times, like he's trying to find the place of this conversation on the map of their friendship. "Yeah," he mumbles, knocked off track. "Okay, that's great. Say that in front of Harry. I want him to hear that."

"Oh," Liam says, shrugging. "Sure, if you want me to."

"You're really good at this game," Louis says, his voice still somewhere soft and not quite playful yet, still a little lost in the brambles and briars they've got themselves stuck in, that thicket of their friendship that's become wild and overgrown. "You're saying all the right things."

"Learned from the best," Liam says, punching Louis gently in the arm. "Just kind of comes out the right way on its own. I'm not – like, it's kind of funny, I was just thinking, like – I really don't need to pretend very much to seem like I'm dating you. It just kind of. Happens. You know?"

Louis' frown creases his forehead, but he quickly brushes it away with a shrug.

*

Liam's not sure if waking Louis before the boys arrive is part of the plan or not. He already showered, shaved, had breakfast, and made a pot of tea but Louis is still sound asleep in the guest bedroom. Liam hovers anxiously by the door for a few minutes, putting his hand to knock three times before pulling it away. That's the thing with making promises he doesn't quite understand; Liam is stuck trying to figure out what to do, trying to guess Louis' directionless game, how not to let him down. But he also knows how much Louis hates being woken up.

By the time he gets the text from Niall ( _5 mins till I see you bud_ ), Liam panics and decides to just hook the hood of one of his jumpers on the handle to Louis' bedroom, hoping he'll get the hint, hoping that sharing clothes is part of the plan. 

Niall never rings the doorbell, his knock is a secret code like schoolboy boarders sneaking out of their dormitories. He waggles his eyebrows as Liam lets him in, the eternal pink flush he has in his cheeks made rosier by winter, Zayn following close behind. They quickly get tangled in a group hug, Niall sandwiched between them as Liam and Zayn reach around to hold each other, broad hands over backs, laughs pressed against the crown of Niall's head.

"Back from the land of the ice and the snow, huh?" Zayn asks, leaving the hug to pull off his black peacoat. "Any midnight suns? Blowing hotsprings?"

"Call of Duty and hamburgers," Liam says, grinning at Zayn as he helps Niall slip out of his purple and cream letterman jacket.

"Are we first?" Niall asks, taking a glance around Liam's flat.

"No, Louis' still asleep," Liam says, gesturing down the hall. "We'll just wait him out, I guess. I made tea."

"He spent the night?" Niall asks, glancing quickly at Zayn and then away. "Didn't spend enough time together already, eh?"

Liam feels his cheeks go hot, but he's pretty sure this was the reaction Louis was going for, exactly the right move in the game, so Liam just takes it in stride. "He didn't want to go all the way to his, I guess," Liam says, rubbing the back of his neck. "We got in late last night. I said he could stay here." Liam decides to do Louis proud. "He's already left so much of his stuff here already, that guest bedroom is basically his now."

"Right," Niall says, his voice full of hidden laughter. "I bet it is."

"Did Harry say something to you?" Liam asks, trying to sound as innocent as he can.

"Might've," Niall says, opening the door to the fridge and pulling out a bottle of Irn-Bru that Liam keeps just for him. He pops the cap off, taking a quick swig. "You really have a candlelight dinner?"

"Yeah," Liam says, shrugging, doing his best to play this just right. "You know how Louis gets about fancy things. You know, making a scene."

"I do know," Niall says behind his next mouthful. "You know, Zayn?"

"I do," Zayn says, the lilt of a shared joke in his voice, one Liam has been left out of.

"So what's the plan for today?" Liam asks, flopping down on his couch, Zayn taking the spot next to him while Niall sits on the edge of the kitchen counter.

"I don't know, just chilling," Zayn says, twisting in place so he's leaning against Liam's side with his legs hooked up over the arm of the sofa. "Fuck about a bit in London and then get some sushi? Hit up some kind of show?"

"Brilliant," Liam says. "Louis wanted to go to H&M, I think."

"Ah," Zayn huffs, and Niall laughs.

"We didn't have much time to shop in Sweden," Liam explains. 

"Oh, we knew you wouldn't," Niall says.

The plan has clearly done its magic, the iPhone photos obviously having been circulated among the rest of the boys, but Liam is kind of taken back by how readily Zayn and Niall are buying into the game. Harry is easy to string along – he'll honestly believe anything Louis says, no matter how absurd – but Liam was pretty sure at least Zayn would see clean through this prank. The way Zayn and Niall exchange knowing glances every time Liam so much as mentions Louis (have they always done that? every time Liam talks in a rush about some new game Louis has hatched? every time Liam volunteers to be Louis' fall guy or scape goat or straight man?) takes Liam aback, and he almost wants to let them in on the joke – ha ha, this is all just a show, we're pretending to be dating to drive Harry mad, you know, jokes, ha ha – just so someone knows he isn't actually dating Liam, not _actually_. 

Really, going along with the joke is one thing, but a strange and childish part of Liam wants to deny it outright. He almost says it, almost tells Zayn the truth, but then he gets this sick sense of déjà vu. It's this feeling like he's thirteen again, when he flinched and seized up if his hand so much brushed against Andy's, when his eyes were glued to the floor of the school changing rooms, when he learned to box just to make sure no one would ever make those kinds of mistakes. It washes over him in a rush, almost forcing the breath from his lungs, making his head swim with that sense of dread and shame.

It makes him feel like an idiot. It makes him feel like he did before he knew Louis. It makes him feel kind of sick.

But.

Louis walks into the living room then, wearing the red hoodie Liam left out for him (a little too big in the cuffs, reaching half-way down his palms,) boxers, and nothing else. His hair is a sleepy halo around his head, his eyes bleary and his frown that poisonous way he gets when he hasn't slept long enough. Liam absolutely grins.

"Yeah," Liam says, his voice calm and certain, "we didn't even have time to write much music, we mostly just spent it playing video games and making food for each other. Or, well, me making food for Louis." Liam gives a firm smile. "It was kind of great, wasn't it?"

"Yeah," Louis says, shuffling barefoot into Liam's kitchen and pouring himself a mug of tea from the kettle. "It was kind of fucking magic."

Zayn and Niall laugh, and Liam feels his cheeks burn with heat, the good kind of heat, the mix of embarrassment and pride he gets when Louis takes him in under his wing.

"So what's the plan for today, lads?" Louis asks, sitting on Liam's other side, his leg resting from hip to knee against Liam's.

Liam is pretty sure he can measure his life in two eras, in the struggle and the success, in the bullied and the famous, the past and the glorious future: before Louis and after Louis.

*

Liam and Niall end up sitting together outside of the change rooms, those chairs where bored and weary people sit waiting for significant others to finish trying on this and that, offering up limp compliments as they play Angry Birds to pass the interminable hours. Or at least that's what Liam and Niall do, hunched over Niall's iPhone while Zayn and Louis and Harry try on suit jackets and summer shirts, white things with salmon pinstripes, pastels, things that look like they came from _The Great Gatsby_.

"Too much?" Zayn says, coming out in a black suit jacket piped with gold, a matching pocket-square. 

"Not if you're Kanye," Niall says, only glancing up once. 

"Fuck," Zayn says, doing a half-turn, looking at himself in the full-length mirror. "I wish I could pull that shit off."

"Buy it," Niall says automatically, his usual response to all of Zayn's tormented choices.

"I wouldn't look like a dickhead?" Zayn says, turning to examine the other side.

"You do anyway," Niall says fondly, "you shouldn't let this coat stop you."

Zayn bites down on his lower lip, and Liam laughs as he catches Zayn do that for-the-cameras smouldering look, the one he tries to hide from the boys ever since they picked up on it months ago. His cheeks colour when he hears Liam laugh, and he raises his eyebrows. "Liam?"

"You look really cool," Liam offers, really not the one to ask about this. Without a stylist, Liam would still be going out in hoodies and jeans and snapbacks, but he knows how Zayn likes his approval. "I mean, I think it makes you look, like, I don't know. Like you should be in – in Monaco or a casino or something. Really cool, man."

"Thanks," Zayn says, the deep and sincere way he gets when Liam compliments him. Liam winks and wonders how many of these stupid boys he's pretending to date, now that he thinks about it.

Harry emerges next in a blue blazer with big brass Navy-style buttons, gold knitted cord on his shoulders. It would look absolutely ridiculous, but on Harry – with his perfect curls, with his fruit punch pink mouth, with those flashing sea-green eyes – it actually somehow works. 

"Jesus," Niall says. "Ahoy there."

"I'm buying it," Harry says automatically. "It's perfect, isn't it?"

"It really is," Liam says.

Harry is just admiring it from the back when Louis walks out in a Paul Smith grey linen jacket, snug around his waist and hips (tugging it down slightly, shooting the cuffs) with sharp lapels and a very self-conscious smile. 

"Yeah?" Louis offers up almost shyly. Louis is a blazing fire of confidence when he's joking around, the edge of his wit up against the whetstone, but somehow, with clothes, he reverts to this other boy, this kid that Liam only gets to see in rare and quiet moments – Yorkshire-raised, tracksuit and gold chains, short hair, ill-fitting, still trying to sort himself out.

"Amazing," Zayn says, taking a moment from his own reflection.

"It's grand," Niall says. Liam isn't the only one who notices the change in Louis, clearly. 

" _Louis_ ," Harry says, stretching out the last syllable. "Looking well fit."

Of course, Louis turns to Liam next. A flicker of doubt passes through Louis' eyes when they make contact, Louis a little too vulnerable to really know how to play the moment, too fragile right now to be really big and funny about it. It really seems like Louis isn't sure if he wants Liam the Fake Boyfriend or Liam the Real Friend right now, not that Liam can tell the difference between them anymore. Louis offers up a little half-shrug, like he maybe just wants Liam's actual opinion, like maybe there's room for sincerity in this big joke. It's like he just wants to hear Liam say something nice, because that's what Liam does, because that's what Liam has always done. 

Liam gets up from his seat and crosses the distance to Louis in four even strides. Louis watches him with a look of carefully hidden caution, scanning Liam's face like he's looking for the next trick, this next slide of the chess piece. Louis stands his ground though, stands there emotionless until Liam's face is eighteen inches from his own, until Liam's puts his hands on Louis' shoulders, until Louis sighs and smiles and Liam can feel his muscles relax under the coarse weave of the linen blazer. 

"Do I look good?" Louis asks, the white edge of a canine pressing into his bottom lip.

With neat, even touches, Liam straightens the lapels of Louis' jacket, running his finger under the arc of the collar, his thumb just brushing against the soft prickle of a day's thin growth of stubble, his hands running down the front of Louis' chest as Liam traces the hem lines. 

"Now you do," Liam says, brushing a bit of invisible fluff from Louis' shoulder, that same hand coming around to mime a gentle punch against Louis' right cheek. His skin is soft and winter-rosy, and Liam laughs when Louis plays along and, in slow motion, pretends to take the recoil of the hit.

*

Liam pays for their sushi dinner, all five of them, but Harry still laughs and pounds Louis' back, his superior grin saying all there is to say.

*

It's just about midnight when they find the club, a place called the Water Rats tucked away in King's Cross. They're here on Zayn's advice, an underground show he heard about featuring some hip hop artists, DJs and singers that Zayn used to play for them on airplanes, in hotel rooms at three or four in the morning. Liam remembers them, cut in between all the Kanye and Jay-Z they'd listen to, these raw and unpolished sounds, tinny and thin from the YouTube videos, just audible over the rush of the plane's engines.

Just as they're rounding the corner to Grays Inn Road, Liam remembers the feeling of these songs, the shape of them on those long tour evenings when Zayn got control of the iPod (it wasn't much of a contest, he had the best taste in the band by far.) Liam can remember the way Zayn would close his eyes and smile as he listened, the way Niall would hide himself in the cavern of his hoodie and bob his head along in time, the way Harry would sleep with his head in Louis' lap, the way Louis would catch Liam's eye and give him the flash of a wink. Five idiot British kids, half-exhausted and listening to music they could never hope to make, music that now all tastes like nostalgia for Liam. Music they're now listening to together, drawn towards it like gravity.

The front of the club is lined by smokers like a picket fence, finishing their cigarettes and stamping the frosty ground with their clever leather boots, breath steaming like angry cartoon bulls. The place is absolutely jammed but the five of them slide unnoticed through the front door with the hoods of their jumpers up, their hands shoved into jean pockets, looking young and raw and anonymous with quick fifty pound notes handed to the bouncer and no questions asked. 

Liam takes the tail end of their duck line, his hands on Louis' shoulders, feeling the thump of the bass in his body as they press into the darkness and flash of light, the earthquake noises caught in his chest and reverberating like the start of an avalanche.

"Louis!" Liam shouts over the crush of noise.

"I know," Louis yells, turning back to grin at Liam as they wedge their way through the crowd. Louis' smile is exactly how Liam is feeling now, that stolen, sugary feeling like they've managed to stretch their holiday one day longer. "Hold on tight, man." Liam slides his hands down Louis' side and holds on to his hips, fingers under the hem of his jumper and t-shirt, fingers pressing white circles into his bare skin, always so fever hot against Liam's hands. Might as well end this dreamy, strange, half-planned birthday present together.

They manage to carve out a little space for the five of them, right near the stage. They're all, one way or another, holding on to each other – Liam's hands on Louis' hips, Louis with a finger hooked in the loop of Harry's belt, Harry with his arm around Niall's shoulders, Niall with his hand around Zayn's waist, Zayn with a loose grip on the edge of Liam's hoodie – and find themselves immediately sucked into the music, into the ebb and flow of the crowd like an ocean. Left arms up, pumping forward, everyone moving in a pulsing wave with the music crackling like electricity, fuzzy and almost thick in the way it hits all the chords of their tendons and muscles. The stage lights shift and break, fracturing like a broken stained-glass window, orange and yellow and purple and blue. When Liam catches Louis' grin, lit up by fiery colours, Liam can't help but want to remember it, tattoo it, frame it, keep this moment like their silly photos from Stockholm.

The guy performing is familiar, the song something Liam remembers Zayn playing over and over while they were in the studio (Starbucks coffee cups, tank tops, cold pizza, two a.m.) Just the familiarity of it pulls Liam in and he feels his body move against Louis', against all the other people near him in the crowd, caught up in the weight of the club as they're all swallowed whole by the night.

The heat is incredible, instant, sweaty; the club is tropical, humid even, a rainforest. They're all pulling off their hoodies, stripping down to t-shirts, some (Harry, Niall, Louis) to bare skin. Everything seems to move organically, the spindly electricity of the mic stands and guitar cords like veins and arteries, the body of the crowd moving like one. It's so easy to let go, Liam feels everything slip away, everything except the anchor of his hand on Louis' now-bare hip, their bodies in sync, sweat-slick skin and gleeful shouts into the air drowned out by music. 

Every so often Liam will catch wild and happy glances from Niall, from Zayn, lost in the same way Liam is. The links of their chain stay unbroken, even now, even as they become part of the roiling sea of raised arms and exhausting joy. It's like they can't believe they're here, at this club, no security and no timetable, shirtless like most of the guys in the crowd but totally forgotten, just a drop in a bucket, actually pumping their fists in time to music with the smell of cigarettes and spilled beer and the acrid, ripe fruit stink of weed all around them. It's almost the same feeling Liam had with Louis, the act of listening to music like they're suddenly somewhere else, apart from everything, in the bonfire of the perfect night out where it isn't a frigid cold January outside (where it isn't snowy Sweden outside) where it's just the five of them, the two of them, locked together in this short forever.

In the broken, shifting murmur between songs, Liam adjusts his hands on Louis' hips and he feels Louis' hand cover his own, squeeze it, and let go. 

"Am I fucking dreaming, man?" Louis asks, his back to Liam.

Liam presses in closer, can feel the hard shape of Louis' shoulder blades against his chest, the boyish smell of his shampoo and sweat in the curve of his shoulder. "Happy birthday, man."

"After Sweden I'm just – how's this even real, fuck, this is going to be a hell of a fucking year, we're going to make this year the best fucking ever," Louis says, and he's not drunk but his voice has that same kind of rhythm. "You really started this one right, Payner, you're one hell of a fucking dude."

"Louis," Liam says, the last few seconds before the next song starts. "Let's always live like this, yeah? Let's always run away. Sweden!" he shouts like a warcry.

"Sweden!" Louis yells back, his laugh is almost lost in the rush of cheers from the crowd. "Liam?"

"Yeah?"

"When're you going to fucking kiss me?" Louis asks, and then the next song begins.

*

The rush of colour and noise they leave behind is muted by the closing doors of the club, like a secret world being sealed off, leaving them in reality again. Back to this British winter, back to the street, back to expectations and five a.m. wake ups and handlers and schedules. It's the real let down of the night, stepping out into the metallic cold as the illusion of Sweden is finally shattered, here on the streets of central London. This day out with the boys, with the quiet private smiles shared with Louis about the fun left behind them like exploded land mines, has stretched the dream a bit longer, but there's no getting away from it now: they need to be home, they need to get to sleep, they need to wake up early. Like childhood Sunday evenings with school looming ahead on Monday, Liam can't properly enjoy these last silly few hours with his boys, already missing the short paradise of his birthday present for Louis, already missing the fun of nothing.

Somewhere in the sweaty, dirty dream of the club, Louis has managed to lose both his jumper and his t-shirt. He walks out into the January night bare-chested, arms crossed over his chest, shivering as his sweat dries, his hair still damp and sharp like he gets after playing football. Liam can already tell Louis is going to be endlessly obnoxious about this.

"It's not that cold," Louis says between clenched teeth. "I want a fucking kebab."

"You're fucking crazy," Niall says, just now pulling on his purple hoodie. "It's freezing, man. Let's get a cab."

"I want a fucking kebab," Louis says again, his teeth chattering now.

"Louis," Zayn says, hands shoved in his jean pockets. "Let's get a cab."

"Cab, Louis," Harry says, rubbing his hands down Louis' shoulders, trying to warm him up.

Louis gives Liam a look then, as he expected. Liam knows that Louis will never own up to anything: losing his clothes, being freezing, wanting to take a cab. Everything he does has to look deliberate, all part of his grand plan, and Liam knows Louis would die of hypothermia before he admitted that he's made a terrible mistake. Liam is feeling all too suddenly quiet, blown out from the loud music and the late night, and he doesn't want to fight Louis on this so, without really thinking about it, he pulls off his own hoodie and tosses it over. 

"Ooh-er," Harry murmurs, loud enough that they all hear. "Under thirty seconds, who had that in the pool?"

Liam crosses his arms over the thin cotton of his t-shirt, waiting for one of them to crack the joke. "His lips were turning blue." 

It's a chance for Louis to smirk, to get another victory over Harry. Liam is ready to blush and act coy and look down at his shoes as is his part of the deal, but it never happens. Instead Louis just studies Liam's face for a moment, and then smiles. A genuine, warm smile that seems way outside the rules of their game. "Cheers, man."

As they start to walk, brisk and cold towards the kebab shop on the corner, Louis walks in step next to Liam, elbowing him gently in the side, like a puppy wanting attention. 

"Sweden," Louis says again, motto, mantra.

"Sweden," Liam replies.

"Kiss me after we order," Louis mutters under his breath. "Just quick, and I'll pretend like I don't like it, wipe my lips or something stupid. You know, dumb movie stuff. Make sure Harry is looking." All quickly whispered, like the covert instructions for a spy: there's a gun in your umbrella, use the normal dead letter drop. "Okay?"

Liam says "okay" automatically, because he's cold, because he's Liam, because he always says yes to Louis. But, as they draw towards the cart, this thick feeling of dread starts building up in his chest like a fist of muscle and blood clenched too tight. As goosepimples prickle on his forearms and his shoulders – in only a t-shirt now, thanks to this walking problem of a boy next to him – Liam's pace becomes slower, sluggish, like he's trudging down the hall to the headmaster's study. The sick feeling in the pit of Liam's stomach is nothing like the hesitation he felt before, wanting to deny this fake love thing, this is a wild and heaving sickness that reminds Liam of stage fright, of an audition, of going to Harry's bungalow and taking his first uneven steps into the strange and twisted world of the boy currently strutting around in Liam's blue hoodie with his hands drawn into the sleeves. It's not the dread going back to a hectic schedule, and it's not the dread of walking in a t-shirt in freezing weather, it's the dread of Louis and of the game and things always going too, too far.

Playing a game with Louis always ends the same way: Louis never knowing when to stop, like something isn't properly finished until it's absolutely broken. When the game is dialing strange numbers on a radio station's phone, _too much_ is never so bad, but Liam realises for the first time – God, why didn't he think of this before – that the end of this game is tied in knots with their friendship, that too much is on the line here, the only thing that can be broken by going too far is the perfect balance of _them_ that they've been building for two years. Liam knows the game will end soon, and suddenly he feels lightheaded at the cost of the broken glass that's about to come.

Louis keeps giving Liam important looks as they all shove some cash into Harry's hands, making him buy the lot. As they each get their kebabs, wrapped up in butcher paper and aluminium foil and passed out like rations, Louis begins to elbow Liam impatiently. Every time Harry glances over at them, Louis delivers a sharp kick to Liam's shins. 

"Do it," Louis whispers urgently as they start to head back to the street, Niall trying to wave down a black cab. "Now, before they stop paying attention."

Liam sucks in his bottom lip, bites down on it. He's holding the warm bundle of kebab awkwardly between his palms and he imagines throwing it down to take Louis by the shoulders and pull him in for that fake kiss, that joke, that planned silliness aimed at Harry. Louis' lips would be dry, Liam would feel them move softly into a smirk before Louis pushes Liam away and pretends it was nothing, is nothing. Louis would wink after the laughter had subsided, maybe pat Liam's shoulders and tell him that he's doing good, that Louis is really turning him into a good prankster, that he's really giving it his all. And Louis would keep asking him to fake it until he grew bored, bored of a game that went too far, and then he wouldn't ask Liam to do it anymore.

"No," Liam whispers, eyes to the frosty ground.

"Come _on_ ," Louis says, in his best _you're ruining my fun, Liam_ voice. 

"No," Liam says, looking up at Louis, his cheeks almost numb, his voice tight.

"For fuck's sake," Louis mutters. "You said you were in –"

"Louis –" Liam tries

" – promised to help –" Louis continues

"It's not about that –"

" – thought you were on my side –"

" _Not like this_ ," Liam says, suddenly loud and stern and unmoveable. The rest of the boys turn to look at him but Liam has his eyes on Louis only, Louis with his open-mouthed awe that he quickly covers with a petulant frown, the frown he wore in those early days when Liam did something Louis didn't like, when Liam refused some fun game (beer, weed, Spearmint Rhino) and ruined Louis' plans.

"Not like what?" Niall asks, cocking his head slightly. 

"Nothing," Liam replies quickly, feeling himself start to blush. "Never mind."

"Not like what?" Zayn echoes again, looking at Liam with typical concern whenever he seems slightly upset.

"Lover's tiff?" Harry asks, waggling his eyebrows.

"It was nothing," Liam says sharply. "Harry, come on, we're not lovers."

Maybe Liam said it too quickly, maybe he sounded too sincere, maybe it rolled off his tongue too easily because Louis' frown deepens and his eyes narrow darkly, half-turning away from Liam so he can look out onto the street. Liam wants to reach out and touch his shoulder, to apologize for not being strong enough to play the game out, but things are already weird enough, Harry and Niall and Zayn all searching their faces for clues.

"Wait, what just happened?" Zayn says, looking at Liam.

"Nothing," Liam says again, trying to sound as casual as he can. He can see Louis' shoulders tighten, the muscles of his body clenched like he's gritting his teeth.

"Honestly, the fuck is up with you two?" Niall asks, jabbing a finger against Louis' ribs. "You can't be fighting right before tour. Come on, maybe you're just spending too much time together."

"Yeah," Louis says, still looking out at the street but Liam knows it's meant for him. "Maybe we are."

Liam is careful to make sure he doesn't look anyone in the eye.

It's not the first time that Liam has let Louis down, pled mercy when Louis got him into a particular chokehold (ask that stewardess out, paint your body purple for the soundcheck, dine and dash on three hundred quid bill) but Liam is almost glad that this game is over. He didn't kiss Louis, he didn't fake it, he didn't let things go too far or get too serious. He didn't let Louis run their love into the ground in the search for a laugh. Louis will be mad at him for a couple of minutes until his next plan hits him and then he'll flop on top of Liam like nothing ever happened, all crimes forgiven because if it's not happening right this very moment Louis has already forgotten it. 

"Come on," Louis says, shaking his head gently and striding off on his own. "There's a cab."

*

It turns out the forgetting and forgiving is a little longer in coming this time. Louis sits on the other side of the cab from Liam, and Louis doesn't move closer when first they drop off Zayn, then Niall, then Harry at their respective flats, and Louis doesn't say anything on the short drive to his flat, his head against the window pane and looking out on the messy blur of neon paints and lights of London, studiously avoiding all of Liam's apologetic little smiles.

Louis' flat is next, and as the cab slows down he goes for the door handle like he's going to march off without saying anything, not even a muttered _see you tomorrow_ , not even a familiar rant about how Liam is too _soft_ and doesn't let things explode, that he ought to let things explode.

"Sweden," Liam says quietly.

Louis pauses, his hand on the door latch. "Yeah."

"Sorry," Liam says.

"Sorry?" Louis asks, slowly dragging the door open a couple of inches. "For what?"

"I kind of – I kind of messed up your plan," Liam says. "Like always, I guess. Ruined your game. I just didn't – not like that, in front of them, it was too –"

"What are you talking about?" Louis says, a touch annoyed but the question sounds genuine.

"You're mad at me, aren't you?" Liam asks, frowning. "Because I ruined your game?"

"Oh," Louis says. "No, man, who the fuck cares about teasing Harry. Whatever." With that, he pushes the door fully open and hops out, still in Liam's hoodie, walking quickly to his front door and fishing his keys out of his pocket.

"Where to next?" the cabbie asks. 

Liam's ears are ringing, the gaps in the air where Louis used to be, not just his body but the feel of him, the taste of him in the air like the iron tang of blood, the feeling Liam got knowing just who they were to each other, what he was for Louis. The anchor is untied, and Liam is drifting on the current, lost at sea. Without thinking, Liam hands the driver a fistful of bills and jumps out of the cab after Louis, half-running to catch up with him.

"Louis," Liam says, a sharp January wind slicing at his bare skin. "Isn't that why you're mad at me?"

The wind ruffles up Louis' hair like a paternal hand as he stops dead in his tracks, the crunch of gravel as the cab pulls out of his laneway and back onto the road. "I'm not angry."

"Really?" Liam says. "You're not?"

Louis turns on his heel. His expression is dark and clouded, the same troubled look he got when he first learned about Liam – his habits, his sobriety, his keenness, his amiability, whatever it was he hated today – and was trying to solve the puzzle of him, or maybe trying to find the weak spots he could get a knife point into. "I –" he frowns, harder this time because he seems to be fighting some kind of battle, fighting against his need to make every mistake seem planned and deliberate. "I don't know why I'm fucking mad at you, actually. Fuck."

"Well, I –" Liam pauses, feeling that sickness of denial, that hesitation, that dread pulse in his heart at the idea of kissing Louis. No, not kissing Louis; kissing him for the wrong reason, kissing him for the illusion of a joke, faking the memory Liam kind of wants to remember like he remembers all their little times together, sincere and silly and _real_. "I'm sorry," is all he can do, offering it meekly.

"If you didn't want to – like, do this, you could have just told me," Louis says, sighing out as his shoulders slump like the fight is bleeding out of him. "You could have just said you didn't want to kiss me and leave it at that. You didn't need to. You know. Pretend for my sake."

"You just would have made fun of me," Liam says quietly. "Not that I mind. I know you tease people you like, but. I mean, if I had said no you just would have pushed me until I gave in, until I folded and kissed you on a dare. Come on, you _know_ you wouldn't let me get away with saying no. You know that."

Louis looks sober, taken down a peg, his frown now facing the ground. "Well, if that's how I act, then –"

"I like that about you," Liam interrupts quickly, crossing his freezing arms over his chest, the flutter of wind ruffling the hem of his t-shirt. "Most of the time. It helps get me in trouble, you get me to have fun even when I think I don't want to."

"But not this time," Louis finishes on his own. He swallows thickly and looks up at Liam. Louis' face is pale except for the bloody slashes of a blush – from the cold, from the conversation – and there's a tightness in the corner of his mouth at the crinkles in his narrowed eyes, like he's a few sullen words away from welling up. "Us lot always kiss each other, but not you and me. I've seen you kiss Zayn, when he got you drunk that one time. Niall on his birthday. Fuck, I've even seen you kiss Andy on the cheek that one time, which I take total credit for, by the way."

"So?"

"So –" Louis stutters, and Liam can tell it's because Louis has to admit to a mistake. Liam knows that this is the sharpness Louis adopts when he has to let his guard down and shows where it hurts, the bruise and the blood that he's tried to pretend he meant all along. "So, the fuck's wrong with me, then?"

Liam blinks a few times, feels this bubble of laughter rise in his chest like a helium balloon. Louis is looking all wounded and severe, like a cornered dog ready to strike if Liam says the wrong thing, all defensive and vulnerable. "Are you upset 'cause I don't kiss you enough?" Liam asks.

Louis' eyes flash like he's about to deny everything, deny that he needs anyone at all. Grudgingly, he gives a tight, angry nod, his frown all but daring Liam to laugh at him. "Like, last fucking night man. Since I fucking met you I've been trying to get you to loosen up, but with me you still – you still don't – I feel like if I didn't make you play all these stupid games you wouldn't even try to – oh, fuck, I don't know. I know you fucking like me, that we're good fucking friends, but sometimes I just want you to show it, but then I can't _ask_ you to show it because then you're just doing what I ask and I want you to, like, _want_ to, and like, Jesus Christ, I've seen you nap with Zayn in just your boxers, man. And I was just – I kind of, like, fucking enjoyed pretending to be your – pretending we were – it was fucking fun but I couldn't just ask you to – oh, for the love of Christ, I just –" Louis runs his hands back through his hair, looking up at the midnight sky like he's trying to control his temper. "Fuck. What the fuck am I talking about?"

"Louis," Liam mumbles quietly, the air the rushes in to fill the silence after Louis' jumbled monologue, his tired sighs. "You think that – that pretending to kiss you freaked me out?"

"Didn't it?" Louis says, sniffing sharply and then masking it by clearing his throat, hands in the pouch of Liam's borrowed hoodie, his eyes scanning the horizon. 

"I – well, yeah, it did," Liam says, scuffing his shoe against the gravel drive. "But not, like, in the way you probably think."

"No, I know," Louis says, clearing his throat again, his eyes not moving from some spot in the distance. "I get it. Never mind, man. It's late."

"Louis," Liam says, a feeling of relief washing through him as Louis loses the bitter edge to his words, as he gets dragged down to being this soft kid who wants the love that he can't ever ask for. "Are you even paying attention?"

"What?"

"I just bolted out of a cab to chase after you before it was too late," Liam says quietly. "Like I promised. Sorry it wasn't an airport."

Louis is quiet for a moment. "Oh," he says, slowly. "Did you?" He finally meets Liam's eyes, his voice unwrapping some new realisation. "You actually ran after me. The fuck is wrong with you?"

"I don't like lying," Liam says. "I don't like lying because everything about you and me ought to be real and good and – and all that stuff, you know?" Liam says, looking now at the dead shrubs and bushes in Louis' front garden, the gothic arch of an upstairs window, anything but Louis himself. "If I'm going to kiss you, I don't want to do it just to get a laugh out of Harry. I don't want to do it because you wanted it for some game. If I'm gonna kiss you I wanna kiss you – like, I want it to be the right way. Proper, like."

Louis takes a steadying breath, letting it slip between his lips in a huff. "What are you talking about?"

"I've thought about kissing you, I honestly have. Kissing you like I kiss the other lads, just dumb and no real reason at all. But – but." Liam coughs again, his eyes looking everywhere but at Louis, afraid of what might be written on his face. "I always thought that kissing you should be something –" Liam's chest tightens, like his body is trying to keep the word in, but the cold wind and Louis win in the end, " – something else, I guess. Something I wanted to remember. I always thought, you know, it had to be – had to be more. It's meant to be. Ought to be, you know. Summat real."

Louis is silent then, and out of the corner of his eye Liam can see Louis worry his bottom lip between his teeth. "Not like this?"

"Yeah," Liam breathes out. "Not like that." 

And so they both stand there, tall and solid, freezing cold (Liam now actively suffering, his fingers going numb, his skin drawn tight over his muscles as the wind cuts through his cotton shirt like it's not even there,) gruffly coughing their words away and staring into the middle distance over each others' shoulders. They stand there in a drawn out silence, like they're not willing to stand too close to the burning coals of their words, backing off from the red and orange and yellow heat of _kiss you_ that's kindling between them. Liam dares a glance at Louis, a quick once-over, and Louis is looking straight back. Their grins match perfectly.

"So what's it ought to be like?" Louis asks, his voice strangely vulnerable and soft, the way he gets at five in the morning when he's begging for a nap, crawling between his boys to get the prime spot in the middle, making sure all the love is being aimed straight at him.

Liam takes the invited steps into Louis' space, keeping his glance trained on Louis the whole time. Louis is a couple of inches shorter than Liam, and his eyes flash with familiar danger, the sharp edges of his teeth ready to bite a kiss or press a smirk or tear the world to shreds. Even at his gentlest, Louis still has the glint of a silver flickblade about him, the metal-grey of a holstered revolver, and when he looks up at Liam, it's like a dare. A private dare, but a dare all the same, nothing to prove this time but to themselves. 

"I can't get away from it, can I? Liam says, their shared breath warm in the close couple of inches. "You'll always push me, won't you?"

"Yeah," Louis murmurs, already losing the vulnerability, already building himself back up to that magnificent asshole, that sun around which they all find themselves spinning. "And you'll always say yes, won't you?"

"Yes," Liam says, and he kisses Louis the way kissing Louis is meant to be. 

Their lips meet, gripping each other around the back, fists clenched in clothes, Liam's hitched intake of breath as Louis cards a hand through the short hair at the back of Liam's head. It's not anything like a first kiss, soft and tentative and finding everything new, Liam has known Louis too long for this to be a first kiss. This is the kiss of being gone for too long, of being a sea apart, of running at each other in an airport after six months, a year, a century away from each other. They hold each other, keep each other pressed together, their heaving chests, Louis' knee pushing up roughly between Liam's. It's a kiss like the edge of a sword, Louis' satisfied little laugh like a honed blade, nipping gently at Liam's full bottom lip.

The weight of Louis' mouth is hot and red, and his hands on Liam's face burn like iron branding his cheek in five easy fingers. A hiss against his lips, like white hot steel dipped in cold water, and Liam knew that this is the way it ought to be, everything as real as the taste of Louis, the smell of him sweaty and boyish and brackish like sea water, of the flint edge of his teeth that Liam touches with the tip of his tongue. It's a hungry kiss, a roaming kiss, a kiss that hits home, hits exactly all the right notes, it's everything like kissing Louis should be, and, yes, something else, something more.

They fall apart gently, like gravity failing as their lips part and are left raw and hot from teeth and want. It's maddening and beautiful, the slow way Louis licks his lips after kissing Liam. He pushes Liam gently away then, a foot of space between them and the metal shock of cold air pressing into Liam's chest. "Okay," Louis says, nodding slightly like he just barely approves. "That was pretty fucking romantic, dude. I think Harry would buy that one, for sure."

"Yeah," Liam says, blushing again even though he wishes he wouldn't, wants to seem as cool and collected as Louis seems right now. Liam is actually freaking the fuck out inside, just like Louis expected, but for completely different reasons. He wants more, like a kid getting off a roller coaster, exhilarated and terrified and wanting to do it again, and again, and again. "I've had a few days practice."

"You're getting good," Louis says, a hint of confident mocking back in his voice that Liam didn't realise he was craving. "I can –" a moment of strange giddiness, Louis gently touching his fingertips to his lips, " – still taste you."

"Thanks," Liam says, grinning the way he gets sometimes, sunning himself on Louis' praise. 

"Don't get cocky," Louis says, smacking Liam's shoulder. "You've got a ways to go yet, mate."

"You know," Liam says, "you were a lot nicer to me when you were just pretending."

"Well," Louis says smoothly, "back then I had to actually _pretend_ like I was genuinely madly in love with you."

"Oh," Liam says. "Sorted, then."

"Sorted," Louis says, and then he's smirking again, and Liam missed that too. "You cold, man?"

"Nice of you to notice," Liam says, actually feeling his whole body begin to shiver, from the top of his spine (where Louis pressed a hand in their kiss) to the small of his back (where Louis pressed his other hand, pulling Liam in.) 

"Wanna come in?" And even though Louis is back to being full of his usual confidence, there's a little wobble there, a little glimpse at the vulnerable side, the question filled with more weight than just spending the night at his flat. Louis seems a bit anxious, a bit giddy, like he can't quite believe how this all turned out. And Liam really doesn't want to disappoint Louis.

"Oh, a first date?" Liam asks, almost a wink, a sly grin.

"Nah," Louis says. "What is this, now? Our fourth? Fifth?"

"Well," Liam says, "Harry's going to be _awful_ when he finds out he was right all along."

"If he thinks he's so fucking clever, let him figure it out," Louis says. "He wasn't _always_ right."

Liam smiles, and he can't help it, he leans forward for another kiss, loving the surprise on Louis' face when Liam steals it. Louis' face lights up on the taste of the kiss, a short but lingering one, and there's a look of unhidden pleasure on him, not all bundled up in sarcasm and confidence. "Actually," Liam says, close to Louis, hands sliding along his sides, shuffling up closer to him for warmth, "I think he has been right. I – I think he's been right for a while now." 

"No," Louis says. "Impossible."

"If you think about it," Liam says quietly, breathing in the mingled smell of the cold and Louis, "we seem to be the only ones who – who didn't notice."

"Shit," Louis says, frowning hard like he's looking back at the last week, month, two years. "Fuck, we can't let them know." His eyes glint and widen, his smirk following closely after. "All right, here's what we do. We pretend like we're having a fight. We make a big show of it. We get them to think we had some kind of argument in Sweden."

"We – we pretend like we're not dating?" Liam asks. "To fool Harry?"

" _Yes_ ," Louis says, leaning up slightly to bite a kiss on Liam's bottom lip, running a rough hand down the curve of Liam's back. "You in, man?"

Liam can only laugh. "Let's do it. Let's fake fight."

"Dickhead," Louis says.

"Tosser," Liam says.

"Fuckwit," Louis replies, one hand steadying the small of Liam's back, the other sliding gently under his t-shirt, warm palm resting on the cold flat of Liam's stomach. 

"Bell-end," Liam says, pressing his mouth into the messy ruffle of Louis' hair, tasting the slight salt of his sweat, kissing the crown of his head.

"Excellent," Louis says. "You're a natural."

Liam laughs, and grins, and not for the first time he cannot believe that Louis exists, cannot even begin to understand what the hell is going on. But really, Liam thinks as he follows Louis inside his flat, he doesn't really need to understand. All Liam needs to know who he is, in relation to Louis, in the great big constellation of his life. And when Louis trips Liam and shoves him onto the bed, landing on his back and bouncing a few times before Louis crawls on top of him, pulling off his borrowed hoodie, Liam knows exactly who he is, who he should be, where he ought to be: right here.

End.


End file.
